“Just hours into his presidency, Trump signed an executive order that seeks to roll back trans rights in nearly every facet of life. The order describes trans women as men and directs federal agencies to keep them out of “intimate spaces” designed for women. It targets trans people’s identity documents and health care, and it narrowly defines sex in a way that aims to erase the very concept of trans and nonbinary people.
In the week since, the administration has halted transgender people’s passport applications, transferred incarcerated trans women to solitary confinement and moved to bar transgender troops from serving in the military – an effort that was met with an immediate legal challenge. On Wednesday, the Office of Personnel Management ordered federal programs promoting “gender ideology” to be shut down and their employees put on leave. A day earlier, Trump directed federal agencies to begin crafting policies that could cut off young people’s access to transition care nationwide. And he has done so in orders that describe trans people as dishonorable and “mutilated,” lacking “humility and selflessness.””
“GOP leaders see an opportunity for a new, working-class coalition, which includes more union outreach. It’s a major shift, and fault lines are already forming over President Trump’s pro-labor Cabinet nominee, former Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer.”
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“Hawley has been quietly circulating draft legislation that would prevent employers from stalling union contract negotiations — keeping the process to months, not years, according to a copy obtained by Axios.”
“The U.S. economy grew at a 2.3% annualized rate in the final three months of 2024, the Commerce Department said on Thursday — closing out a year of strong growth.”
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“The fourth-quarter growth figures are aslowdownfrom the 3.1% rate in the previous three-month period.”
“Fired inspector general of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Phyllis Fong was removed from her Washington D.C. office on Monday after refusing to comply with the conditions of her termination.
A 22-year-old veteran of the department—which has a broad mandate to investigate food safety and animal welfare—Fong’s office has been investigating Elon Musk’s brain implant startup Neuralink, among other investigations into the Boar’s Head’s listeria outbreak.
The USDA launched a federal investigation into Neuralink in 2022 for potential animal-welfare violations following internal staff complaints alleging the needless suffering and deaths of animals via testing, reported Reuters at the time.
On Friday, Fong was one of 17 federal watchdogs given their walking papers by the Trump administration, reported Reuters. However, Fong told her colleagues in an email that she intended to stay in her post, arguing that “these termination notices do not comply with the requirements set out in law and therefore are not effective at this time.””
“The new orders prevent transgender people from openly serving in the military, greenlight the process of developing a missile defense shield to protect the U.S., and reinstate service members that voluntarily left or were forced out of the military over COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Trump also penned an expected executive order that would “abolish” every diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) office within the DOD and Department of Homeland Security, the latter of which houses the U.S. Coast Guard.”
When it comes to the Jan 6 rioters there’s an emphasis on what they did to police offers. That matters, but the most important part about the incident wasn’t the attack on the police, but the attack on United States democracy. The rioters attacked the legislature of the United States in their seat of power, and some did so with the intent of, at least temporarily, ending U.S. democracy by keeping a president who lost an election in power.
“The new law will require the detention of undocumented immigrants accused of certain crimes such as theft. Federal immigration officials have warned it could impact 60,000 people.”
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“ICE warned Congress that the Laken Riley Act could require detention for 60,000 people, and that the agency would need billions of dollars and thousands more detention beds to comply with the law, Axios reported.”
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“The federal government has prioritized deporting immigrants with criminal records since the Obama administration”
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“Study after study has indicated that immigrants — those in the U.S. legally or undocumented — commit crimes at lower rates than U.S. citizens, Axios’ Russell Contreras reports.”